Scoreboard says 3-1, but Canucks no match for Ducks

Structure was outnumbered Thursday by speed, skill and size as the Anaheim Ducks gave the Vancouver Canucks a reality check that felt like a slap in the face.

The Ducks dominated the Canucks for stretches before settling for a 3-1 win at Rogers Arena. For 53 minutes it was men against boys, Ducks against bird seed, a team trying to win a Stanley Cup against one striving to prove it’s competitive.

“It was a test,” Canuck defenceman Luca Sbisa said of the powerful — literally and figuratively — Ducks. “It’s a typical West Coast team. San Jose, the L.A. Kings, the Ducks, they play that game. The one thing that was pretty disappointing was knowing that’s the style they’re playing, you’ve got to bring your compete level and win the one-on-one battles. In the third, we showed some life. But the first two periods, we got out-battled, especially at the boards, too many times.

“Even if you get outmatched going into the corner against a guy 20 pounds bigger, you can still tell (the effort) by the way you battle. That compete level just wasn’t 100 per cent.”

Canuck forward Brandon Sutter said: “They’re obviously a big team that plays a hard game, good structurally, well-coached. But we just didn’t have our game tonight. First half of the game, it seemed we were really in our own zone a lot. Too many turnovers. It just wasn’t our best effort.”

There’s a reason Willie Desjardins and his Canuck coaching staff changed tactics for this season and installed a tighter defensive system to give his team better “structure.” The reason is survival.

The Canucks are neither fast, skilled nor big enough to overpower anyone. What they have is their structure — trying to trap teams in the neutral zone, force them wide in the Canucks’ end and limit the “home-plate” scoring chances.

Against the Ducks, who have all of those impressive traits that the Canucks do not, Vancouver’s structure was not enough.

The Canucks’ 6-3-1 run since their nine-game losing plunge included impressive wins against the New York Rangers and the Minnesota Wild. But for the most part the Canucks took advantage of a reasonably spaced schedule and some weak opponents to cling to the vapour trails of the playoff race in the Western Conference. They beat the Arizona Coyotes twice, the Colorado Avalanche, the erratic Dallas Stars.

The Ducks, who have everything to win a Cup except a goalie, are another story.

The Canucks’ structure meant chasing the Ducks around the Vancouver zone. The Canucks weren’t quick enough to get to loose pucks or strong enough to push the Ducks off of them, so they relied mostly on goalie Ryan Miller.

And by the end, after a strong game, even Miller failed, allowing Andrew Cogliano’s weak, deflected shot to tumble through him and make it 3-1 with 2:25 left.

“It just hopped back the other way,” Miller said. “Still, I want to be tight enough that I cover that. I’ve got to get myself in better position to react to that. It just kind of killed everything at that point.”

Vancouver was fortunate to escape the first period scoreless. Shots were 10-5 for Anaheim, but scoring chances and, especially, zone time were far more lopsided.

Philip Larsen of the Canucks watches as a shot knocks the helmet off Ryan Miller.Jeff Vinnick /
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At least the altitude training the Canucks experienced Saturday while winning in Denver helped their stamina against the Ducks, who extended numerous shifts in the Vancouver zone, even changing on the fly to the far bench a couple of times without letting the Canucks escape their own blue-line.

An Anaheim goal was inevitable. When it finally came 3:19 into the second period, the only mild surprise was that it was generated on the rush. The Canucks looked hypnotized as Ducks defenceman Cam Fowler wove down Main Street, sucking defenceman Philip Larsen to the middle of the ice before dishing to the Canuck’s side for a Jakob Silfverberg one-timer that beat Miller from 35 feet.

The Canucks were dealt a potential get-out-of-jail card when Ducks Josh Manson and Ryan Garbutt took penalties 62 seconds apart, giving Vancouver a 58-second, two-man advantage starting at 11:44 of the middle period.

But Ryan Kesler must have been in his old team’s special-teams meeting because the Anaheim penalty killer took away Plan A, Troy Stecher at the Vancouver point, and Henrik Sedin seemed at a loss to generate Plan B.

“We need to execute our routes, we need to execute our passing,” Sedin said. “We did none of that. They took Stech away, but we need more patience from other guys as well where we’ve got to get to our spots.”

Fifty-one seconds after the power play ended, Ondrej Kase made it 2-0 for the Ducks, drawing both Miller and Erik Gudbranson to the ice before banking the puck in off the Canuck defenceman.

The Canucks generated little until they created a goal with seven minutes remaining, Hank Sedin scoring from Loui Eriksson’s shot-pass after a lucky bounce off the glass.

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